Tag Archives: china

So a few days ago a friend discovered information about a bid to run a World con in Beijing in 2016. Here is the website, it is in Chinese, But a translate program is interesting.

People who have friends in Chinese fandom have identified the parties, and where the idea came from. Without going into too much detail, it is unlikely that such a bid would win at the site selection this year. However i think a Chinese World con would be a very interesting thing to have happen.

While there may be issues around how much control the Chinese government might have over programme, these are questions that we should wait until we have an actual bid team around to ask questions of.

For me, i would love a Chinese Worldcon as I would love to visit Beijing and the surrounding area. There is also a chance to meet some Chinese fans and see how Chinese fandom works.

of course this then leaves us wondering when would be best for them to bid?

If you look at the bid years that are around, there are no open years for a long time (There is a declared intention to bid for every year out until 2022)

So doing some analysis on the best year for such a bid, I think we can ignore 2017, as four bids is already more than enough, and I don’t think we want the War of the Five Bids.

2018 has two US bids, and China might have a chance there, However this is a case where the voters for two US bids would be more likely to Stay in the US. At the Site selection in 2013 votes transferred from Orlando at a rate of approximately 2 to 1 to the other US Bidder. So avoiding 2018 is probably a good idea.

For obvious reasons I would prefer not to have them enter the 2019 bid race. Though this is the first year without a US bidder in the Race. The same can be said for 2020, for which New Zealand declared an interest in a long time ago. No one is bidding against them as yet and they have a lot of popular support among regular Worldcon attendees/voters.

the bids in 2021 and 2022 only have a single bidder each, Texas and Chicago, who hosted the 2013 and 2012 world cons. Which means they are also good places to bid.

I think the earliest that a Chinese bid would have a chance would be 2019. However as people who have not had much of a presence at a worldcon, it might be better for them to spend a few years running small parties and introducing themselves around, with a target to bid for 2021 or later.

Seven years sounds like a lot, but it means they have two years to introduce themselves at London and Spokane, then three years of bidding, with a vote in 2019. That is of course if they can actually get entrance Visas to the US…